Shine
by The Rev
Summary: Vegeta and Nappa are on a routine mission from Frieza, but what they don't know is that the planet they are supposed to clear houses something... dangerous.


Author's note: I've said it before, and it seems necessary to say it again now. Vegeta has never been one of my favorites. No mater how often he's a character in one of my fics, I just don't like him very much.

Well, by necessity Vegeta is the main character of this story. The main reason is, he's one of the few main characters with an almost completely unknown and unobserved past. We know that he worked for Frieza, and that he was the prince of the extinct saiyajin race. But beyond that, so little is shown of him that practically any scheme could be turned into a credible plot.

So, I'll get to the fic before I give anything away. The only other words I have for you are; The moral of this story could possible be to be careful who you piss off. You never know who - or what - they could be.

1.

Somewhere in space, years before Vegeta reached adulthood.

The prince of the few remaining saiyajin looked around himself with his usual expression; boredom and contempt. The planet he had been ordered specifically to clear of life looked as if the job had already been done. There was nothing here but bare rock, and being one of the few warriors in the imperial army who had mastered sensing ki, he knew that there were scant few life forms even on the planet, and that none of them were very strong.

"Why the hell did Frieza send us to this dump?" he grumbled to his companion and perhaps the closest thing he had to a friend, Nappa. "There's nothing here but dead rock."

The bald, enormous saiyajin elite frowned and scratched his head. "Beats me. I could swear this is the right place. But if it is, that doesn't explain what happened to the whole units of soldiers."

Nappa was referring to the three groups that had been sent to the planet prior to themselves. None had been heard from once they got within the planet's atmosphere, and none had ever come back. Indeed, once they had begun their descent, their radios and scouters had been reduced from high tech machinery to noisemakers, as they had done nothing but bray static. The impatient prince had stood it for all of three seconds before reducing the offending machines to rubble.

Vegeta closed his eyes, trying with all the power of his mind to sense if any of the three scouting parties were still on this planet. Of course his sense could not cover the entire area, but he could sense nothing in their general vicinity, and scant few living things at all even far away.

He opened his eyes. so, the teams were most likely dead. No great loss, really, not to him, not to the empire. But if something on this planet was strong enough to get rid of them, that was the Elite's business, and he was one of the elite, albeit lower than many. 

But he couldn't sense anything that powerful. He could barely sense anything at all.

"Come, Nappa." He snapped in his normal rude manner, and let his aura freely blaze around him, taking off a split second later, giving only a passing glance to make sure that Nappa was following close behind.

Right now, he had to find some sort of speaking, intelligent being that could tell him what had happened on this planet, and why three groups of soldiers had just disappeared, when there were no discernable high kis on the planet.

The place seemed so sparsely populated that the nearest ki signature was miles away, toward the mountain range he saw in the distance, shrouded with mist.

Well, then, that's where they needed to go.

Vegeta redoubled his speed and shot toward the small ki, Nappa struggling to keep up behind him.

2.

Frieza gazed coldly out the window of the huge battle cruiser into the depths of space, where just in visible rang, he could see the planet that he had sent the two saiyajin to clear. He had sent them because he expected them to be able to do the job, but he didn't expect them to come back alive from it. 

And of course, being saiyajin, they were quite expendable.

He closed his eyes easily, simply thinking, wondering what exactly would be going on down there right now? Could Vegeta be preparing to destroy the planet already, to destroy the thing that would attack them and themselves together? Possible. But it would most likely take a little bit longer than this, maybe much longer. Well, that was all right.

He smiled and looked over at his second in command. "Do you feel it Zarbon?"

The tall, elfin warrior apparently hadn't been paying attention, and he jerked slightly. "Feel what, lord Frieza?"

The ice-jin only smiled. "There's something bad down there. Something so bad I don't even want to get close to it. And do you know what? Those saiyajin may be able to destroy it, but they'll have to die trying."

Zarbon said nothing. When Frieza was talking, it was best to just remain silent and at least pretend like you were listening.

Frieza knew pretty well what Zarbon was thinking. But he didn't really care.

This job would be done soon, and he could take care of other things later. Once Vegeta was gone. The saiyajin prince made him feel a bit uneasy lately.

3.

nothing.

Nothing.

NOTHING!

It was maddening. They had been flying around for over an hour, and they still couldn't get anywhere near an intelligent ki signal. They had come upon three life forms so far, but they had all been some rather strange forms of animal life, not capable of speaking, or even really forming coherent thought.

They were coming upon something new now, two kis very close together. But he didn't have much hope of it being more than another animal. It was frustrating.

So he was startled when he flew over a low clearing and saw a person.

The thing looked as if it had been put through a meat grinder. It had purple skin and a long, strangely shaped head. Other than that, it was so beat up that it was impossible to tell any other distinguishing features. An arm was missing, and the whole of the figure was covered in a dark blue blood, except for two wide, terror filled eyes.

Vegeta landed next to it.

"Who are you, tell me now!" he said commandingly. "I represent the Cold empire."

To his surprise, the thing didn't answer. Instead it staggered forward almost blindly at him, and grabbed the front of his combat armor. And it spoke, strangely, in the Common language of the empire, so Vegeta could understand.

"Run from this place." It's voice gurgled past blood in it's throat as it struggled to bring forth words. "the thing in white… the fire…"

Vegeta, in disgust, slapped the thing aside, throwing it into a cliff some distance away.

"What the hell was that thing talking about?" he glanced at Nappa. The older warrior only shrugged.

Vegeta looked off to the side of the clearing toward the other close ki he could sense. It was less than half a mile away, and moving very slowly toward them.

"We should check that out." Nappa said. "Maybe whoever that is knows what that other guy was talking about."

Vegeta nodded silently. They flew off slowly into the air, and noticed only in passing that the sky was getting darker, clouds swirling.

It took scarcely one minute to get to the ki. And when they landed (in yet another clearing, this one only a few miles from their capsules, ironically(, what they saw almost defied their minds to compute. 

4.

They landed in front of the strange thing silently, and it didn't seem to even notice them.

It was dressed all in tattered white robes, it's hair the same color, cropped off only a few inches from the skull. It flew around in wild tufts. 

The things eyes bad small black pupils, but no irises, as if the pigment had been removed, giving the almost human looking creature a distinct look of madness as it stared off into the middle of nowhere.

They stood for perhaps fifteen seconds, just looking at the thing. It didn't notice them.

Vegeta finally spoke.

"You there! I am Vegeta no ouji, representing the Cold empire! Explain now why this planet is so deserted, and what happened to the troops we sent here!"

the thing slowly turned and stared at Vegeta in the same wide eyed way it had stared off into the sky, and smiled. The saiyajin noticed that it had two long, pointed fangs, and it's skin was white as milk.

"SHINE!!!!" it suddenly screamed at them, and before their eyes, a wall of fire leapt out of nowhere and surrounded it, almost like an aura of ki.

Vegeta and Nappa jumped out of their positions and into the air instinctively, the second they heard the high, utterly insane sound of the creatures voice, and it was a good thing. They had been out of their place for perhaps half a second when a tongue of flame licked out of the thing's aura and scorched the ground black.

Vegeta growled in his throat, not bothering to wonder how the hell this thing made fire in this manner, or why the flames had now gone out as quickly as they had appeared. He only knew that this creature was a threat to his survival, therefore it must be exterminated.

"Nappa, fire!" he screamed, and he and the other saiyajin both blasted their beams down on the thing, expecting it to be reduced to nothing.

But to their surprise, a clear bubble suddenly formed itself around the creature, and the blasts of ki glanced off of it like a stone skipping off water.

"what the…?"

"SHINE!!!!" the thing yelled again, and a sheet of flame leapt from the ground, wrenching rock into the air and tossing it. The flames flew at the warriors.

"Run!!" Nappa yelled out, and Vegeta reluctantly followed this advice, turning and jetting off, only vaguely aware that the thing had shot unharmed through it's own flame and was pursuing them without using ki, flying through the air on some psychic power.

There. Ahead, he saw their capsules. They7 had to get to them, then they could get into space and destroy this planet, along with this thing that was on it.

Vegeta touched down, and quickly jumped into his own ship, slamming the door and firing the engines to life.

The door waas quite suddenly ripped right off the pod, and Vegeta was yanked out by his neck. He was looking directly into the eyes of this mad thing that was for some reason intent on killing them.

He only had a split second to think. At this close range… he formed a quick ki ball in his palm and blasted it straight through the things stomach, a shower of silver and blue light going through it and out it's back. The hand released Vegeta, and he quickly ran over to the other pod, where Nappa was waving at him furiously to get the hell over there.

Vegeta risked only one glance back at the strange creature. What he saw chilled his blood.

It's eyes were closed in concentration, and the gaping hole in it's midsection was slowly closing.

Nappa slammed the door, shutting them in the pod. The engines roared, and they blasted off.

5.

Vegeta and Nappa had their oxygen masks on, and the door to the pod was open. Vegeta, without a word, held one hand out and released a powerful ki blast straight at the center of the planet. Then the piled back into the pod as the explosions began and the planet started to go.

In the few seconds it took the planet to detonate, he hoped that the explosion would kill the thing, whatever it had been. But as he heard the echo of that insane laughter in his head, he wasn't sure.

He wasn't sure at all.

The End 


End file.
